May 28th - June 3rd 2007
Sunday Parliament Hill
Saturday Beggaring belief
Friday Tufnell Park
Thursday Summit talk
Wednesday Highgate
Tuesday Animadversion
Monday Kew Gardens
Sunday 3rd June
Parliament Hill, Spring 2007
Saturday 2nd June
Signs of Summer #157: Beggars start prefixing their requests by enquiring if you're English.
Friday 1st June
Tufnell Park, Spring 2007
Thursday 31st May
After the wet saga of my rain-swept voyage to Parliament Hill Fields, from which I returned with some dismally vague vistas of London, I determined that half the problem with the photographs was haze, and that it was high-time I bought myself a UV filter.
That proved pretty epic in itself, but a month or so later, on the first fine day when I found myself up by noon (a rare combination), I set out to try again, aiming to travel - as before - the long lazy way round: tube to Whitechapel, change at Mile End for Stratford, and thence on the North London overground to...what station was it again?
Not Hampstead Heath, that much I was sure off. So probably the stop before that, Gospel Oak. Or it might have been Kentish Town West?
Whatever. Even if I got off one stop earlier than I meant to, I had plenty of time in hand. And how challenging can it be to follow the railway line on foot for what must, surely, be only a mile or so?
Plenty challenging, it transpires, because Kentish Town West sits in the middle of at least three overhead railway tracks, one of which goes north (the one that goes to Gospel Oak) and one of which heads west (the one that I followed).
And did I mention this is one of the hilliest tracts in North London?
When I'd mentioned Parliament Hill Fields to David, he'd airily claimed to prefer Primrose Hill for aerial views - something that, of course, made me all the more determined to return to the former.
And where did I find myself several hours later, after traipsing several miles south of Gospel Oak and on (and on, and on) to Swiss Cottage and then back west? You guessed it.
I did get some good pictures though (as, Of Course, I would have done at Parliament Hill, what with my UV filter and it not raining and...everything.)
Having summarised the summit, I loped downhill to The Zoo, getting there predictably just too late to get it, but getting some nice shots over the railings nonetheless.
And then on into Regent's Park, with more Zoo-thru-railings, and round the vast sports pitches, with the setting sun silhouetting the cricketers (who saved themselves from cliché by turning out to be girls), with a brief detour to take yet more pictures of ducks, and then out the other side of the park, and finally to collapse onto the tube at Great Portland Street.
Six miles in total.
How do I know how far it was? My new best friend told me: Gmaps pedometer
Wednesday 30th May
Highgate, Spring 2007
Tuesday 29th May
I know what it means; I know what it ought to mean
Animadversion: - low-rent derivatives of Aardman Animation's talking animals, as increasingly seen in television advertising
Monday 28th May
Kew Gardens, Spring 2007
......previous week
